The present invention generally provides methods and systems for facilitating the ranking and positioning of advertisements. More specifically, the present invention provides methods and systems that use combinations of analytics data, confidence scores, and expected revenue to determine an ordering or positioning of one or more advertisements in response to a given request received from a client device.
Advertisements are commonly used on the Internet to promote various products and services. Advertisements may comprise banner ads, links to web pages, images, video, text, etc. The various advertisements used to promote products on the Internet may be displayed according to a variety of formats, such as within a ranked result set in response to a search query, embedded in a web page, a pop-up, etc. The advertisements displayed to a user of a client device may be selected, redirecting a user to the advertiser's website providing information regarding the product or service advertised.
Client devices, communicatively coupled to a network such as the Internet, are able to access various websites that may display advertisements. For example, a user of a client device may submit a search query comprising one or more terms to a search engine, which causes the search engine to retrieve a result set comprising links to content and advertisements responsive to the search terms provided by a user. The search engine displays the result set to a user, who may then select or view items in the result set comprised of one or more advertisements.
While the Internet provides advertisers with the ability to reach a significant quantity of users, thereby increasing the likelihood that a given product or service is purchased by a user, Internet advertising further provides revenue to search engines that retrieve and display advertisements in response to various requests. A search engine may generate profit when a given advertisement in a result set is selected by a user or displayed to a user in response to a search query. For example, advertisers may pay a predetermined amount to have banners, images, or other advertisements displayed to users in response to a given search query (“impressions”). Search engines may also charge advertisers for each advertisement selected by a user or delivered to a user (“click through”). However, different advertisements may be more or less profitable for a search engine to display as the amount paid by each advertiser for displaying or having a user select an advertisement varies. Furthermore, an advertisement ranked and displayed first in a result set is more likely to be selected by a given user than an advertisement ranked second, third, etc. Therefore, advertisers often want their one or more advertisements displayed in positions that increase the likelihood that a given advertisement is selected.
A bidding marketplace may be used whereby advertisers may bid for the position or rank of a given advertisement in response to a given query. Current methods for selecting the position or rank of an advertisement using a bidding marketplace may select an advertisement with the greatest bid to appear first in a ranked list of advertisements or in a position most likely to be seen and selected by users. Such methods for selecting advertisements with the greatest bid are based upon the assumption that advertisements with the greatest bids will yield the greatest revenues for a search engine. However, while an advertisement with the greatest bid may generate the most profit when selected, an advertisement with a lower bid may generate more profit if the likelihood of users selecting the second advertisement is significantly greater.
In addition to ranking methods based upon bids associated with advertisements, result sets comprised of advertisements generated in response to a user's query may also be ranked according to an algorithm that determines the frequency with which a query term appears in a given web site. Such ordering methodologies, however, are tailored to provide users with results that are ordered according to their relevancy with respect to a given query. Such ordering methods order results, such as advertisements, in descending order with the result most closely related to a user's query ranked first. Ordering advertisements in a result set in descending order with respect to relevancy is based upon the assumption that an advertisement ranked first in a result set displayed to a user is more likely to be viewed or selected than an advertisement ranked second, third, etc. However, these methods fail to take into account the profit interests and needs of the search engine providing the result on behalf of an advertiser.
While the ranking of an advertisement in a ranked result set is often indicative of the likelihood that a given advertisement is selected, the advertisement's appeal to users of client devices may play an important role in generating revenue for a search engine. Advertisers may pay a search engine for each user that selects a given advertisement. Advertisements that are the most appealing and most relevant to a given user's query may often be the advertisements most frequently selected by users, thereby generating greater revenue for a search engine. As noted above, current methodologies for ordering advertisements in response to a request examine the relevancy of a given advertisement. While relevancy is often a factor in a user's selection of a given advertisement, the likelihood of a user selecting a given advertisement is also based upon the advertisement's appeal to users, which may be determined based upon previous users' interactions with the advertisement. Therefore, when determining an ordering for advertisements in response to a request, search engines may want to consider relevancy, appeal and revenue to increase the likelihood that the most relevant and profitable advertisements are displayed and selected by users.
Current methods and systems for ranking advertisements in a result set or positioning items in a given web page fail to take into account relevance, appeal and revenue generating potential of advertisements displayed in response to a search request. In order to overcome shortcomings associated with existing techniques for ranking or positioning one or more advertisements, embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for examining the relevancy, appeal, and revenue generating potential of one or more advertisements and ranking or positioning the one or more advertisements based upon the same.